


10 Witcher secrets that will make your bard really wish there was some kind of field handbook.

by Someonesfirstworldproblems



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Communicating, Idiots in Love, Jaskier | Dandelion Being an Idiot, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Marriage Rituals, Pining, Pining Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Weddings, also witchers being emotionally constipated, in my last fic he was smart but not anymore Jaskier is stupid, witchers have weird shitty traditions, yennefer and roach are just mentioned really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22357513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Someonesfirstworldproblems/pseuds/Someonesfirstworldproblems
Summary: Jaskier is standing with two fistfuls of red, looking to Geralt like the Witcher will make sense of the scene they've both found themselves in.The red in question, spills from his calloused fists, so great in volume it's pooling on the floor of the empty stone room.Jaskier does not know what red means to Witchers.----------or. Witchers have some weird-ass traditions that literally no one else is privy too, like certain colors mean certain things to them. And that giving people certain colored things means something. They are a confusing people, I do not understand them and neither does Jaskier.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 51
Kudos: 1183





	10 Witcher secrets that will make your bard really wish there was some kind of field handbook.

**Author's Note:**

> yo fuck! I did not think I would be posting so soon after my other fic, but well, now I have fic fever. So Disclaimer: this is not factually accurate I have barely consumed any Witcher content and all I looked up on the wiki was how to spell the name of Witcher Hogwarts so...? The colors thing was my own creation. Take it or leave it. This story is very dumb and mostly plot less. I really do enjoy my own musings

Jaskier is standing with two fistfuls of red looking to Geralt like the Witcher will make sense of the scene they've both found themselves in.

The red in question, it spills from his calloused fists, so great in volume it's pooling on the floor of the empty stone room. 

The little stone room in the little stone house, with one great paned window that lets in the fading light of the sun and the cool air that's just come off the ocean. The temperature is dropping in quick little successive increments, Jaskiers chest rises and falls in a series of pants that leave him breathless.

In Kaer Morhen, the hidden village of witchers, the Haven of learning and what passes for nurturing youths in the mountains, red is an expensive color. Red is the cost of life, blood spilt from humans and certain human-faced monsters, red is the harshly turning seasons as leaves crumple and fade into the bitter cold of winter, one that Robs the land of its color. Red is the color too bright for a Witcher don and expect to return to the village alive in, a dark shaded Witcher is a breathing Witcher, after all. 

And red, the glorious illustrious kind of red Jaskier is holding is the red of connection, the harp strings and loose ends of destiny’s tapestry. The red that binds, that seals, that marries. For in Kaer Morhen, in the high hailing Witcher village, on the very seldom, very discouraged occasion that a Witcher marries, which is almost never and very usually done in secret. They craft their wedding attire in red, the color of blood, the color worth too much coin for a Witcher to spar in good conscience. The dye for the fabric, an investment of so many of the villages already small and outrageously precious summer harvests. The crushed red fruits, the crushing of little red fruits, a specific and deathly serious insinuation.

And here is Jaskier, alone in a room with two grand spools of red silks, picking between the two bright fabrics carefully. Riffling through his memories of Geralt on the road, in all sorts of lights and shadows, attempting to decide which fabric would complement his Witcher best. Oblivious to how his choice in color for a gift, the simple kind of present that's really more for his benefit than Geralt's, a dressing shirt to wear to court callings, is the one color most Witchers have sworn never to wear.

" What are you doing? " Geralt had choked, voice trapped somewhere between his great chest and his throat.

And Jaskier hadn't known, he'd said something fleeting,  _ picking a color that best matches your eyes _ . Some stupid joke that should have had Geralt sparing him a bemused sort of grunt before both their attentions would be pulled elsewhere.

But that isn't what happened, instead, Jaskier has somehow rooted the Witcher to the spot just past the threshold of the door, captivating both brilliant golden eyes on the spill of fabric in his hands.

And Geralt says nothing for a long moment, the silence that fills with Jaskiers humming is not the contented ignoring kind, but has one with an air of stunning. As in, Geralt, the Witcher, great white wolf, the butcher of Blaviken, is completely stunned. Watching the small bard on the floor rifle through fabric samplings for a garment that he does not understand that Geralt cannot, in good conscience, wear.

And Geralt feels as though he cannot say anything, as if the Bard has robbed him of his few choice words. Mostly because, when he had seen red, and Jaskier, and the smooth heap of silks on the floor the Witcher's mind had cyclically muttered only one thought. ' _ I could marry him. _ ' And then nothing afterward, because that had been the point when his mind had gone to shit. 

Naturally, his hackles tried to rise in fear, as if the idea of commitment, of marriage and family, and a home to have and hold forever had triggered the animalistic fight or flight response within Geralt. It's unpleasant, the bolt of fear that shakes his whole spine, but the realization itself, the warmth that blooms in his chest and temple at the thought of his Bard and a warm home just off the coast, that feeling is not unpleasant at all. It is the nicest thing the Witcher has never allowed himself to feel before, and now it sits upon his breast heavy, unbidden, and entirely out of his control.

And he hates it. Hates destiny, hates fate and prophecy and legend but this, if destiny has brought him this in her cruel and shaking hands, this he will take, this he can take with eager vigor and the greedy hands of a child he never was.

" Do you know what it means? " he rumbles, his heart rabbit quick in his chest. The whole of his emotions rolling quickly downhill away from him. Because there is a light in his throat and a feeling of vertigo in his stomach that is so fleeting, and fledgling, Jaskier could kill it with a huff of his breath. The Witcher is waiting for an answer that is nigh impossible for the Bard to give, how could he know? How could Jaskier possibly know? And yet he still has hope and it's-

" Ah, well I'm trying to make you a new shirt for court because you seem to only own the one, and it's so dull and crusty. And well I only thought that red was a very good color, strong you know, and you don't often wear color so I was hoping that you'd like it, maybe? You don't have to wear it all the time, just the once really, or twice, we have a court gathering next month remember and-"

Jaskier smiles then, half in and half out of his own fantasy of courts to jest and play to.

" I dunno I just wanted you to have a fancy garment you don’t actively hate. But by the look on your face, I can't tell if you hate it or have eaten some terrible herring? I hope it is the latter not the former. But as long as your here you should help me choose, it is- good gods what's wrong Geralt!"

The Bard is off talking again, he'd raised his head in a sort of good-natured glance at the Witcher before continuing on his merry train of thought. Only to give himself the spins by whipping his gaze back up so fast. Geralt looks as if he's seen a ghost, or a ghoul, or a cockatrice in a set of stockings, or something equally as worrisome and stupid. The Witcher is all pale lines and gaunt expression, which is a great feat considering how deathly pale Geralt is naturally.

In a flash Jaskier is on his feet, hands mindlessly, crushing the fabric between his fingers in a panic to be upright.

The bard’s mind is racing, what could it be? What could have happened to give the Witcher such a wrought look over his face during the few hours that he'd been out of Jaskier's careful sight?

War. Gods, it must be war, the war has reached the coast. 

Or no, perhaps Yennefer has fallen ill? Perhaps the sorceress is dead? Although, Jaskier doesn't see the immense problem with that, of course, he will be appropriately mournful if she is. Because Jaskier is a kind and benevolent fool when it comes to Geralt's feelings. 

Or worse yet, what if Yennefer is pregnant? Oh, Geralt has gone and given the woman the child she was always after hasn’t he? Great withering tits what will Jaskier do? What can he do? But oh wait no Witchers are sterile aren't they then what must-

Jaskier gasps all at once, mind still spinning behind his infectiously blue eyes.

" Your child surprise, you!- you've come upon your child surprise! Oh dear, oh shit! What the hell are we going to do! Is it alive, a living child? How old is it? Can it sit up on its own? I can't deal with a creature that can do nothing but cry and scream it'll be no good for my muse!"

The Bard looks about as panicked as Geralt feels, and all at once the Witcher knows the situation is getting away from him as Jaskier slips into imaging his own worst scenario upon worst scenarios were infantile shit and vomit finds itself upon his doublet and prized possessions.

The Witcher has to stop him before he worries himself out of the open window, literally, Jaskier has taken to pitching himself around the room in his hysterics, trailing those two red silks like the great tails on a fox.

" Oh, Geralt! This could be the end of us! Neither of us has any chance of raising a child! It will grow up stilted and malformed! I cannot! We cannot-"

" There is no child surprise you hysterical fool stop blithering" Geralt bellows, loud enough to shake the trees outside the house.

Roach gives a half-hearted neigh in response from outside and Jaskier stills, hands raised in the air in a great ridiculous motion, still clutching that damned red.

" it is- there is no child, all right. Be at peace." With those words Jaskier does seem to settle, his whole body slumping till he is back in a heap on the floor.

" Witcher! Geralt! Don't scare me like that." the small man laments.

" oh bards of old," he continues. "I thought the mistress of fate had surely done us in then." Jaskier lets out a sort of deflating noise, like all the air in his chest has escaped out his nose in a high reedy note. Geralt can smell the pinched tangy aroma of anxiety fading off the bard in slow coils as he tries to catch his breath against the stones.

Geralt imagines he smells like the rotten stinging notes of fear, fear that had crept into his being from the mere sight of a color. He is as ridiculous as he is old, and feels even more foolish for it. He watches Jaskier take his deep and steadying breaths from the floor, muttering simple nothings to himself in consolation.

Somehow, and this is quite a feat, the idea of a child fills the Witcher with less fear than the thought of marriage. He notes, with no small bit of anger, that his fears are shamefully specific and that he should address and purge them in a timely fashion when the opportunity to do so next presents itself. 

For now, Geralt is...

not content,

not with the feeling in his stomach still so fresh

but he can be patient, waiting and biding.

He cannot tell Jaskier what any of this means, not the revelation, not the fabric, not the sudden and terribly aching feelings in his chest. None of it. if Geralt is lucky, which he rarely is, he will take the secret traditions of Witchers to his grave. Along with his foolhardy heart, that sings a belligerent chorus of  _ I could marry him, I could marry him.  _

But for now, he has to focus on being here, in this little stone house, with its small cropping of windows and its lingering smell of salt and sea. Perhaps here, the Witcher can elect to ignore his feelings, the severity of the gesture, and the fleeting nature of a human's life. And imagine instead, in the moments where he lets himself imagine anything close to a happy ending at all, that he and Jaskier have settled here, in this tiny home, their hearts content from travel and their stomachs full from the fire. With longing no more. 

________________

Later, a terribly, brutally, long time later, Jaskier discovers what the color red means to Witchers, and heatedly asks Geralt if they had really been married all this time. The bard is cuffed in the back of the head for it by the strong hand of his not-husband, as a purple-eyed witch laughs, and laughs, and laughs in the background. 

Jaskier will demand later, that they have a proper wedding. Geralt grunts. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on my phone while my mom was driving me home from school. At least we're on the Medieval portion of history in class as I have one actual fleshed out idea for this fandom that I am planning to crack out this week that has actually plot imagine that! Anyway, I thought of the colors thing randomly, I legit just pictured jaskier clutching onto big peices of red fabric randomly and it all sprung from there. Thats why the first lines are kind of not vibing with the last lines. But who gives a fuck right! this isnt the common app! anyway, fuck it, I called the witcher hogwarts the witcher village, bite me. 
> 
> Also leave me a kudos if you liked it, ya'lls support it what made me post this shit. thanks for reading, good night LA.


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